Cliff Osmond on Acting is a blog dedicated to asking and answering all sorts of questions about acting and the business of acting. Cliff welcomes your questions! E-mail Cliff at cliff@cliffosmond.com.
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Friday, October 16, 2009

ON ACTING: Creating "Moment to Moment"

Only bad actors want long scenes. Good, real-life actor's-as-characters want short scenes; quick victories. The honest actor-as-character moves through a scene to achieve her objectives with her first line; she only moves to the second line because the first line failed; and she only moves to the third line because the second line failed. Throughout the scene, no matter what the length, the good actor's attitude is “All right; one more line…but I’m sure that one will succeed.” When that doesn’t succeed, the character thinks: “I'll only have to try one more line,” etc. The actor-as-character naive optimism creates the necessary and valid "moment by moment" quality of an honest actor's performance.

Cliff has appeared in dozens of films and hundreds of episodic television shows and movies of the week. Most notably, Cliff appeared in four Billy Wilder films including starring roles in "Kiss Me Stupid" with Dean Martin and Kim Novak and "The Fortune Cookie" with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Lemmon and Matthau were Cliff's sponsors into the Motion Picture Academy. He also wrote and directed "The Penitent" starring Armand Assante and Raul Julia

Cliff teaches acting and scene study in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Dallas. For more information, please visit Cliff's website or feel free to email him at cliff@cliffosmond.com